Feds Spend Nearly $500K To 'Combat Online Trolling' (freebeacon.com)

mi writes: Washington Free Beacon reports: "The National Science Foundation is spending roughly half a million dollars to combat 'online trolling.' A joint project by Northwestern and Northeastern universities is examining how to create 'trolling-free environments' on the internet. The researchers define online trolls as those who try to influence public opinion by boosting 'misleading' and 'inauthentic comments.'" Just how can the "misleading" and "inauthentic" speech be eliminated by the government without violating the First Amendment? "Today almost every browser click that users make is collected by numerous trackers associated with a variety of online services (e.g., advertising networks, online social networks, e-commerce platforms)," a grant for the project states. "Users have often expressed concern about the lack of privacy and control over their personal data. Nonetheless, despite a substantial effort to expose and control this prevalent behavior, the reality is that users keep accepting updated online privacy policies, which in turn grant the gathering of more personal data. This project explores re-using this extensive tracking infrastructure for the benefits of both the users themselves and web services, with a goal of preventing online trolling (scenarios in which various groups deploy tactics to influence public opinion on the internet, by leaving biased, false, misleading, and inauthentic comments, and then artificially amplifying their ratings). The project aims to show how the tracking infrastructure can be re-used as a user 'fingerprint,' allowing a lightweight and privacy-preserving form of identification for third-party web sites." The lead researchers on the project, Aleksander Kuzmanovic from Northwestern University, and Alan Mislove from Northeastern University, said: "Public opinion is of paramount importance in any society. It is thus not a surprise that many governments, political parties, and various other groups deploy tactics to influence public opinion on the internet, a practice commonly referred to as trolling." They say their work could help combat "troll armies" used by Russia and China.

Comments

What's good for the goose...

[Anonymous Coward]

The researchers define online trolls as those who try to influence public opinion by boosting 'misleading' and 'inauthentic comments.'

Where I'm from, they're called politicians.

Re:Trool?

[ArmoredDragon]

Sometimes sharing valuable information can be trolling. But either way, on the internet, there are no such thing as safe spaces that trolls like myself cannot penetrate.

Re:They already invested in Slashdot

[whipslash]

Yet you're still here

That... That's not trolling at all.

[Pluvius]

It is thus not a surprise that many governments, political parties, and various other groups deploy tactics to influence public opinion on the internet, a practice commonly referred to as trolling.

No, that's commonly referred to as "astroturfing." Trolling is something totally different, and not something that state actors generally get involved in.

Rob

First Amendment in the way?

[fustakrakich]

Just how can the "misleading" and "inauthentic" speech be eliminated by the government without violating the First Amendment?

Easy! Just call a constitutional convention and eliminate the First Amendment. Since it's growing more unpopular every day, it shouldn't be a difficult task. In fact we can put the entire Bill of Rights on the block. Anybody got a problem with that? After all, there is a war on... and all this freedom stuff is only making total victory more elusive.

As a side note, watch for possible shadow banning, and please inform us if you see any evidence of it happening